jmarkbertrand.com

Hearing Voices ... Again

2008-11-13T11:24:00.004-06:00

My Orr Street Studio reading from February has made the news -- or at least, a photo of it has. Vox Magazine did a profile on Orr Street's "Hearing Voices" reading series, which was started by my friend Anthony Connolly with another friend, Allison Smythe (both of them are quoted in the article). It's great to see our little group in Houston, now split by diaspora, having such a wonderful afterlife. If you're ever in Columbia, MO, Orr Street should be on your agenda. Here's the article:

Letting voices be heard: reading series offers local literary hub

My wife was particularly charmed by the juxtaposition of the opening line -- "Drawings of muscular, nude figures ... " -- with my lamentably unmuscular and gratefully unnude photo.

Reviewing Bibles for Fun and ... well, Just Fun

2008-10-16T16:19:00.002-05:00

BibleDesignBlog.com is a side project of mine that's taken on a life of its own. Traffic over there has shot through the roof recently, so I should probably be mentioning this site there instead of the other way around. The idea of the site is simple. As a former graphic designer obsessed with good typography and a Christian to boot, I've always been fascinated by the Bible as, among other things, a design problem. How do you arrange all that information to promote readability? And in an age of declining publishing standards, how do you manufacture a book meant to be read not once but for a lifetime?

"The physical form of the Good Book," in other words. Thanks to the forbearance of my wife and the kindness of a lot of people in the publishing industry, I've been able to write about the topic at length. Whether my efforts really contribute to any substantive improvements, I can't say, but it's a terribly fascinating way to spend one's time.

Today, for example, I posted a lengthy piece about a new edition from Cambridge University Press, the classic Pitt Minion featuring a relatively new translation called the English Standard Version. If you haven't clicked over and taken a look at the site before, this would be a good feature to see -- lots of photos, some of them even in focus!

New MacBooks: A Good Thing

2008-10-14T15:01:00.003-05:00

The new MacBooks have been unveiled, and I'm happy to see that the body is aluminum. My current white MacBook replaced a 12 inch Powerbook I loved in every way. The only reason I parted with it was the processor switch. Since Apple didn't make an Intel-based 12 inch, I had to go with the 13 inch MacBook, despite my misgivings about the plastic case. (I also had to settle for a reflective screen, something I was reluctant to do.) But at first, I was happy. Two things changed that: the plastic case started cracking along the inside edge -- a common problem, apparently -- and the sharp case edge around the keyboard made actually typing for any length of time uncomfortable.

The new MacBooks feature what Apple is calling "unibody" construction, which should solve the cracking issue. Unfortunately, based on what I see in the photos, the sharp edge seems to have been carried over. I hope this isn't really the case. Either way, I'll be happy to get back into an aluminum case, relegating the plastic laptop to some kind of homebound duty where ruggedness isn't a requirement.

What I was really hoping for, though, was a sub-13 inch notebook, something that would make a good travel companion to a regular desktop system. At just 4.5 pounds, though, perhaps this one will do the trick.

Halloween Netflix

2008-10-09T16:10:00.004-05:00

When the weather changes and the leaves begin to fall in earnest, my thoughts turn naturally to . . . scary movies. Far be it from me to wax philosophical about the pleasure we take in frightening ourselves. Suffice it to say, we do. At this time of year, I start re-ordering my Netflix list, leap-frogging a bunch of low budget B-movies straight to the top. I can't rely on television to meet the demand -- unlike Christmas, which dominates programming at least a month and a half before it happens, Halloween doesn't merit much beyond a Charlie Brown special. Even IFC, which at least makes an effort, is just going to run things like Return of the Living Dead, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and, of course, the choice of literal-minded people everywhere, Halloween. Sure, Halloween is as commercialized as Christmas, but in more of a county carnival way. Zombie walks? Sure. Parades down main street? Not so much.

What is a scare-seeker to do? Honestly, a lot of the classics -- especially the post-Friday the 13th slasher stuff -- don't appeal to me much. So my strategy these days is to hunt for foreign horror. Guillermo del Toro's Spanish-language films, for example -- The Devil's Backbone, The Orphanage -- and the occasional French entry, like They Came Back. I enjoyed Them enough to watch it again this Halloween -- though apparently not everyone liked it. Why foreign? I think the de-familiarization that comes with a story set in a different culture freshens up the genre.

Of course, the real challenge this year is going to be putting together a fresh Halloween playlist. It's going to be hard to beat the one from a couple of years ago, which headlined with "It's Halloween" by The Shaggs.

Recent Writing

2008-10-03T15:25:00.002-05:00

I had a horror film experience at a secluded gas station over the summer. Walking into the restroom, I found a body at the bottom of the tub. Like a good product of my culture, I snapped a phone picture, and then I wrote about it on my blog Write About Now. If you want to know more, here's the link: "There's A Story All Right."

Today at The Master's Artist, I was inspired by a boring movie and a letter Norman Mailer wrote to William F. Buckley, Jr. to think about the difference between a high concept story and a well-told one. Again, here's the link: "How You Write."

And at BibleDesignBlog.com this week, I've written about the color blue, about tan calfskin, a pocket psalter, a size comparison, and an exciting unboxing.

Sandbaggers Redux

2008-10-02T17:41:00.004-05:00

Not that I missed the point of John Le Carre's "The Madness of Spies" in last week's New Yorker or anything. Not that I don't have a dog-eared copy of The Second Oldest Profession. But I confess I have a thing for the bureaucratic side of cloak-and-dagger for which there is no better fix than a dose of Neil Burnside. I plugged it last August, and I'll do it again -- my favorite spies, The Sandbaggers.

The only thing better than discovering an old series like this just waiting to be enjoyed is stumbling over an unfamiliar author with a long backlist. Unfortunately, I'll never be able to watch The Sandbaggers for the first time again, and everything I've hoped would give me the same thrill has failed. I had high hopes for The Sweeney, for example, especially given my appreciation for Life on Mars, but I just couldn't get into it in the same way. So the hunt continues. Are there any 'serious' 70s or 80s spy shows out there waiting to be discovered?

"Thick" Confessional Identities

2008-10-01T12:18:00.003-05:00

Reading James K. A. Smith, I find myself nodding in agreement more often than not, and here he manages to say in a few words what I've stumbled over many times.

"A more persistent postmodernism -- one that really follows through on the implications of claims made by Derrida, Lyotard, and Foucault (or better, the meshing of their central claims with insights from the Christian theological tradition) -- will issue not in a thinned-out, sanctified version of religious skepticism (a "religion without religion") offered in the name of humility and compassion but rather should be the ground for the proclamation and adoption of "thick" confessional identities. . . . In this respect much of the dominant discussion in postmodern theology or philosophy of religion actually shrinks back from the more radical implications of the postmodern critique."

JAMES K. A. SMITH
Who's Afraid of Postmodernism: Taking Derrida, Lyotard, and Foucault to Church, pp. 116-117

It's always seemed to me that, as a reaction to the twentieth century's hollowed out evangelicalism, taking the process further -- getting thinner, in Smith's parlance -- doesn't have much going for it, whereas "'thick' confessional identities" have a lot to offer. Which might explain why, though I naturally privilege my own confessional identity, I feel an affinity for most anyone with a confession, even if it's traditionally at odds with my own.

You Are Where You Sit

2008-09-30T16:04:00.003-05:00

If over time people come to resemble their pets, then I'm in good shape . . .

But what if it's the furniture you have to worry about?

Walk into the local furniture mart and you'll discover that things are generally oversized and overstuffed and faux-finished. Now two of those three descriptors could apply equally well to me. (To date, I haven't had any 'work' done.) But in the hope that furniture can exert a reverse pull, I'm trying to surround myself with all things tasteful and modern.

Case in point, our new chairs:

They were manufactured in Minnesota, probably in the sixties, by a company called Homecraft. The design is inspired by the Eames DCM, with a key modification in the interests of comfort: padded seat and back. We found one reupholstered in cowhide and Laurie (who's writing about this stuff too) latched on immediately. I was skeptical, because while I like the look of the Eames molded plywood chairs, sitting on them in another matter. One repose on the Homecraft variation, though, and I was sold. We found three more at a Twin Cities shop and plan to have them reupholstered, too. They're as comfy as one of those awful puffy leatherette recliners, only with clean lines.

What can I say? I love modern furniture. (Or to be more precise, as in any other aspect of life, I hate most of it and love some.) I have no taste for the retro-kitsch plastic stuff, for example. Tulip as a flower? Fine. As a soteriology? You bet. As a table and chairs. Prepare to die. The International Style suits me fine, though. If I could get away with turning out house into an industrial looking mid-century corporate lobby, I'd have Barcelona chairs out to wazoo. But Laurie has to live here, too, so we're finding an eclectic balance.

Now if only I could find someone to adopt that cat!

On having a front door

2008-08-26T11:02:00.003-05:00

For the first time in two years, I have a front door. I have a tree, too, and a wind chime, and even a little balcony, but it's the door I'm thinking about at the moment. We'd been living in an access-controlled building, which meant people couldn't just walk up to the door. Deliveries had to be left with the concierge, newspapers and mail in the lobby downstairs. Although we were in the heart of the city with a great view of everything going on around us, we were insulated from it. Not anymore.

The politicians got to us first. I was in the front room, an enclosed sun porch where I said we were not -- absolutely not -- going to put the television. I was watching television. With bare feet. An older lady in denim shorts comes speed-walking up to the front porch, waving at me through the window, then knocks on my door. What am I going to do? I open up and get a five-minute stump speech from the candidate herself, who's running for state-wide office. It's so vague and full of uplifting, vacuous hope-and-change rhetoric that I had to look her up afterward just to find out which party she represents or what issues -- apart from the welfare of children -- she believed in. She pointed out a guy across the street doing the same door-to-door walk in his natty panama hat, and explained he was on the same ticket. They made a point of knocking every door in the district. I decided this was pretty cool, a genuine small-town experience.

Since the one chore I happily embrace is mail collection and sorting, I like knowing just when it's arrived, which saves me several daily trips on the elevator. I still haven't gotten used to the idea that I can put outgoing mail outside my very own door and someone will come along and pick it up. That's a first for me. In Houston, in spite of living in a house, we had to walk to the neighborhood mail dump.

This week the Jehovah's Witnesses stopped by for an awkward chat. Was I much of a Bible reader? Indeed I was. Did I agree that God can help in times of trouble? Indeed I do. Throughout the ninety-second chat, I'm thinking of the hundred-plus apologetics stories I've heard from friends and colleagues, including the piece de resistance, in which a friend managed to whip out his Greek New Testament to administer the obligatory smackdown. But I found myself oddly charmed by this halting encounter, sensing that the girl doing the talking (who was apparently being chaperoned by the older, non-speaking lady who accompanied her) just wanted to get through her script, hand off the pamphlets, and hustle on. I know what that's like. She wasn't as enthusiastic as the politician. Her leaflets were full of condescending Big Brother didacticism and surreally colorful artist's depictions of an apocalyptic kingdom.

The front door is so new, I still forget it's there. Every summons takes me by surprise and finds me singularly unprepared to do anything but nod and wait and stare incredulously at whomever has just walked into my life. I'm sure I'll get used to it. I'm surprised it fascinates me so much. Who would have thought a front door would have novelty value?

The Proper Place of Ritual

2008-08-20T19:35:00.003-05:00

As a man often frustrated with his own lack of ceremoniousness, I found this quote from C. S. Lewis's Preface to Paradise Lost particularly keen:

"The modern habit of doing ceremonial things unceremoniously is no proof of humility; rather it proves the worshiper's inability to forget himself in the rite, and his readiness to spoil for everyone else the proper place of ritual."

I came across the quote on p. 345 of Jeffrey Meyers' book The Lord's Service: The Grace of Covenant Renewal Worship, not surprisingly in a chapter devoted to a minister's dress in worship.

Worldview, Government, and the Good Life

2008-08-13T17:34:00.002-05:00

At the close of one of my lectures in Seattle, a student came up and said, "I see you're going to be speaking at the Value Voter's Summit in Washington, DC." To which I replied: "I am?" Sure enough, it's true. Intrepid author and law professor Mike Schutt -- a frequent commenter to this blog (to the extent anything associated with it can be described as 'frequent') -- has organized a panel titled "God & Caesar: Worldview, Government, and the Good Life," which will take place September 13, 2008 as part of the summit. Here's the official description:

This panel will address the basics of sound, biblical thinking about government and politics, beginning with the religious roots of political order and the definition of true freedom. It will discuss the key concept of "jurisdiction", the biblical idea that God grants authority to various interdependent governments--including church, state and family--in diverse spheres. Throughout the discussion, the panel will highlight the importance of godly wisdom as individuals engage the world through the political process.

To say I'm looking forward to this would be an understatement.

The House Wins

2008-06-11T16:52:00.006-05:00

Laurie just broke the news at Liquid Paper today: we're buying a house. Since we left Houston two summers ago, we've been living on the top floor of what used to be an old hotel in downtown Sioux Falls, the biggest metropolis is the underpopulated state of South Dakota. But it was always Laurie's idea to move closer to McKennan Park, a historic neighborhood she always enjoyed when growing up in the city. The new place is just a mile away from downtown, but it puts us in walking distance of the park.

The house, as you can see, is an early twentieth century affair in the Foursquare style, which featured an anti-Victorian minimal aesthetic. So lots of Craftsman-style woodwork. Over the years, it's become a bit of an aesthetic mish-mash, so we're going to have to put some work into it, but the period details -- including original doors, glass knobs, and even an old-fashioned doorbell you have to twist -- are all there. It's going to be an adventure, and we're both looking forward to it.

Laurie has posted some more photos, including interior shots that show off the best and the worst, so follow the link above to take a closer look.

Doxology and Theology

2008-05-20T14:00:00.002-05:00

Friends are a good substitute for memory. While I was chatting with my friend Luke this morning, he reminded me of a phrase our first seminary professor, Dr. David McWilliams, often used: "Truly, this is theology which leads us to doxology." Like many of the things Dr. McWilliams said, this one made an impression on me (so much so that I quote it on page 105 of Rethinking Worldview, and refer to it again on page 247). One of the things I've taken it to mean is this: good theology should lead to doxology. When theology doesn't do that, it's suspect.

But Luke, who had lunch with Dr. McWilliams recently, helped me see the phrase in a new light. There's a crisis in evangelical worship and has been for years, giving rise to a succession of band-aids -- and band aids, if you see what I mean. For the purposes of debate, the concept of worship is narrowed down to a question of musical style, and if you'll forgive a little cynicism the argument is essentially whether we should sing to the Lord in a late nineteenth-century way (which is conceived as 'traditional') or an early 1980s way (which is conceived as 'contemporary'). To an outsider, it probably makes as much sense as debating whether we should say Cicero or Kikero -- hey, it's still Latin.

For the record, I'm generally in favor of what people call 'blended' worship, ideally a combination of what's best in the tradition (going back farther than Fanny Crosby, one hopes) with the best of what's being written today (and yes, what was written in the 80s). More importantly, I'm in favor of whatever we do in worship being done well. Being asked to choose between bad contemporary music and bad traditional music ... well, it's a dilemma all right. I just don't see the point in asking people to express themselves in a musical idiom not their own, so the challenge is helping a congregation own whatever music it sings.

But suppose the real crisis isn't so much musical as it is doxological. If good theology should lead us to doxology, could bad doxology point to a lack of theology? This assumes a link between what we believe and how we praise, but not necessarily a melodic one. Good theology does not lead inevitably to four-part harmony. But it does inspire an urge toward transcendent worship, where the focus is on God's presence rather than human performance. It's been my experience, both in traditional and contemporary settings, that the spotlight slips all too easily away from the cross and onto the stage -- which is why I'm grateful to performers, traditional and contemporary, who guard against this. People behave in worship the way they would at a performance, and consider the worship good if the performance was.

Ideally, a self-consciously liturgical approach to the service should alleviate this, because the music is distributed in a larger architecture of worship, and the congregation is invited to participate -- to respond not to the performer but to the presence of God. To be ideal in this way, though, a liturgy must be saturated in Scripture, creed and confession. God speaks through his Word, we confess our faith. The experience is wordy, and the words carry theological import. The crisis is not about style so much as it is about the thinness and paucity of words. Not enough words. The wrong words. Not enough people given the chance to voice them. The solution is liturgical, but only in the sense that liturgy is a conveyance for theology. Theology leads us to doxology, and liturgy (like a sonnet structure) gives doxology its form. Form and content, in other words, are not discreet categories. They're parts of a whole, influencing one another. If we desire a rich doxology, we need a rich theology.

Or, to put it another way, in the face of good theology, we might utter with Dr. McWilliams: "Truly this is theology that leads us to doxology." And in the face of bad doxology, we might say: "Truly this is doxology that ought to lead us to re-examine our theology."

My Interview in Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 90

2008-05-01T15:23:00.005-05:00

Volume 90 of the Mars Hill Audio Journal is out now, and it leads with the interview I did with host Ken Myers about the state of the worldview discourse. This edition is packed with an additional 75 minutes or so of discussion on the National Endowment for the Arts study on contemporary reading habits (or lack thereof), so it's well worth hearing. Here's a taste of what's on offer:

Guests on the current issue (Volume 90) include: J. Mark Bertrand on how the language of "worldviews" can mean something richer than it often does; Michael P. Schutt on how the day-to-day practice of Christian lawyers can reflect a Christian view of the nature of law; Michael Ward on how C. S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia were shaped by medieval cosmological beliefs about the seven planets; Dana Gioia on the disturbing trends in the reading (non)habits of Americans; Makoto Fujimura on reading, painting, and attending to the world; Gregory Edward Reynolds on lessons about reading from the study of media ecology; Catherine Prescott, on why portrait painters often depict their subjects with books in their hands; and Eugene Peterson on the place of reading in the spiritual lives of Christians.

If you don't subscribe to Mars Hill Audio Journal, you should. It's essential listening, and I'm honored after many years of subscribing to find myself on the other end of the microphone -- and in such august company.

A Long Tour of the Shelves

2008-04-29T13:00:00.004-05:00

I've gone book-crazy recently. Camera in hand, I snapped photos of one shelf after another, and as a result I can share a pretty good cross section of my antiquarian titles. Not everything -- some of the photos didn't come out -- but enough to give you an idea of what I like.

The Pater set (above) was a gift from Laurie, one of the first sets I ever received. The two-volume set of Montaigne's essays in French is quite nice. If I'd snapped a photo of the boards, you'd be impressed by the vivid marbling.

Sartor Resartus (above, middle) was kind of a favorite of mine, but the real goodies are on the far right, sword books by Roworth, Castle and Hutton.

Not everybody loves the Folio Society, but I think their two six-volume, slipcased sets of Graham Greene's serious novels and his "entertainments" (above) are brilliant.

Since I mentioned Sabatini and Weyman recently, I figured I should include some of their other works -- Count Hannibal and Venetian Masque, respectively. Also a couple of editions of my favorite Arthur Conan Doyle stories -- not about Sherlock Holmes, but the quixotic, idiotic Brigadier Gerard.

A nineteenth century set of Thackeray's works (above), set in tiny type with copious illustrations.

Some true favorites above, including a beautiful two-volume edition of Pater's Marius the Epicurean, Carlyle's The French Revolution (my first ever antiquarian score), and Baudelaire in French, complete with some pretty bizarre plates.

The two-volume set of Rossetti's works (above) is majestic in person. The volumes on the right comprise The Lives of the English Saints.

Guy Mannering and The Pirate (above, right) are early editions of Scott acquired at one of the London shops that sells books by the foot to decorators.

Last but not least, what I think of as the "gold books," an assortment of volumes I picked up more for the binding than the content, with the exception of the Georges Sand novel in the middle.

The Filofax

2008-04-25T10:09:00.002-05:00

Anachronism isn't my middle name, but it might as well be sometimes. Leave it to me to develop a love for the Filofax in an age of PDAs. To be precise, I fell in love in the mid-90s, at the twilight of paper, when a planner still made more sense than a plug-in appointment book. And I've succombed, like most people, to the convenience of computer calendars, relying on my iPhone in most cases. But there's something about the Filofax I can't get over. Call it nostalgia.

I discovered a blog recently devoted to the love of Filofaxes -- dubbed Philofaxy, cleverly enough. It's worth checking out if you, too, have the bug, or would like to contract it. Where paper planners are concerned, I could do without Franklin Covey and Daytimer, but I'm a sucker for the classic Filofax and for pocket datebooks like the Moleskine one. I don't use them as religiously as I once did, but you'd be surprised how often they come in handy, even in a world where the computer is king.

The School of Fencing

2008-04-23T12:10:00.004-05:00

An interest in swords is something a man doesn't have to account for. No need to explain when the topic first came to his attention, why it caught his imagination, and so on. Of course it caught the imagination -- swords are sharp metal things you poke people with. Why wouldn't they? For as long as I can remember, I've been reading about them, daydreaming about them, and occasionally brandishing them. In some ways, I took it farther than most, which is how I ended up in Ewart Oakeshott's kitchen, eyeing the light cavalry sabre on the mantle. Which is how I ended up with a sabre of my own, wrapped in brown paper, which I toted around London like a character from Highlander. Here it is:

Of course, I took an interest in the literature of swordplay, too, which happens to be a rich one, with fencing manuals going back to the Middle Ages. Perhaps the most famous is Domenico Angelo's The School of Fencing, a lavishly illustrated instruction book from the mid-eighteenth century, by which time the art had been very refined, but had not quite disappeared from the streets. I included a photo from Roworth's much cruder handbook last time, but I figured I should share a few plates from Angelo (or, to be precise, an excellent reprint of Angelo from the 1960s).

Growing up, we had a reproduction of Gainsborough's The Blue Boy on the wall. Who didn't? How much more interesting he would have been to my childhood self if, like the fellow in blue featured in Plate 31 (the fourth from the top), he'd been running his sword through the body of another fellow.

More Books for Swashbucklers

2008-04-14T14:00:00.002-05:00

Last week's piece on Restoring Dumas is only half the story. Some people read Dumas early, but I wasn't one of them. To be honest, Richard Lester's early 70s adaptation of The Three Musketeers with Michael York in the lead put me off -- in spite of my great affection for all manifestations of Oliver Reed. So I got to the master by a circuitous route, via two of his best-known acolytes. The first was Rafael Sabatini, the author of Scaramouche. One of my most prized antiquarian sets is a complete edition of Sabatini's work, still respelendent in original bindings (complete with little ships, in honor of Captain Blood).

Unfortunately, the set came out during Sabatini's lifetime, so some of his best books -- like Master-at-Arms -- aren't included. If you like Dumas, you owe it to yourself to read Sabatini, who does much greater justice to the swordplay and scene-setting. When Sabatini traced his influences back to Dumas, there was a significant figure in between, a writer largely forgotten today: Stanley Weyman.

A Gentleman of France is probably his best, though I'm also partial to Count Hannibal (not shown), which is set after the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre. The swashbuckling adventure genre has all but dried up today, but it flourished once, and the quality of the books is impressive. Of the three writers, I think I'd rate Weyman the best (though Dumas was a master storyteller and no doubt deserves to shine much brighter). I haven't found a leather-bound edition of Weyman and don't know that there ever was one, but the hardbacks tend to be beautifully produced, particularly the early ones.

Of course, if you read too much about swashbuckling, you'll get the itch for a little cut and thrust yourself, in which case Roworth's The Art of Defense comes in handy. To give the full title, The Art of Defense on Foot with the Broad Sword and Sabre. This is the 1798 edition, complete with the fold-out plates. It isn't nearly as elaborate as Domenico Angelo's The School of Fencing, or as down-and-dirty as Donald McBane's Expert Sword-Man's Companion, but Roworth gets the job done in style.

This particular copy is bound in red calfskin and black shagreen (click here for a look), so it's rather unique.

Restoring Dumas

2008-04-10T14:41:00.003-05:00

It's no secret I love old books. Years ago, I used to drop in on the Detering Book Gallery every weekend, where I'd gain admittance to the upper room where antiquarian volumes were stored. With NPR playing in the background, I browsed for hours, and usually went home with a book or two. Once in London, we found a bookshop selling antiquarian titles to decorators by the foot, so I bought a foot of books (which the seller was kind enough to allow me to choose by title, though most clients went by color).

But I've only taken on one restoration project. In the days before eBay, I found a classified listing an almost-complete, numbered set of the English edition of the works of Alexandre Dumas. The seller wants about $200, because the covers were in terrible condition. I bought them expecting trashed reading copies (or worse). Instead, they were beautiful. All the original plates were intact, and the marbled boards were nearly so. All that needed replacement was the three-quarter calf binding.

The cost of restoration was more than ten times the cost of acquiring the set (which might explain why I've never done it again), but I have no regrets. Most of these books are either out of print or quite difficult to find, and each is a delight to read.

I remember returning to grad school one semester, and Dan Stern asking everyone to list what they'd read over the summer. It was an impressive mix of obscure, high-brow literature until my turn came. I'd just finished Le Chevalier de Maison-Rouge (#29, pictured above), but was a little ashamed to admit it. I owned up, and made a little apology on behalf of antiquarian reading. I don't know whether anyone was convinced -- and you know what? I didn't care. I had to get back to my reading.

A Friend in The Chronicle

2008-04-03T14:38:00.003-05:00

Since I'm far from Houston, I don't read the Chronicle anymore, but I found out that a longtime friend is featured in the Local Bands section of today's edition.

"In the land of Dixie" by Joey Guerra

Dixie Trahan sings with "a delicate, soulful voice, which has rightfully earned comparisons to Alison Krauss," but since I heard Dixie long before I knew who Alison Krauss was, I tend to invert the comparison. (You can listen for yourself by sampling tracks from her album at DixieTrahan.com.) I've known her since high school, where her husband and I were best buds (though he was much cooler than me), so it's great to see her talent enjoying the kind of attention it deserves. May it lead to much, much more!

The Virtue of Inflexibility?

2008-04-01T14:41:00.003-05:00

Yesterday, I wrote about using the iPhone as a pocket Bible at the Bible Design & Binding Blog, and some readers thought it must be an April Fool's gag. Now the real gag is online -- hopefully it will be understood as a joke before a market-wide panic develops.

For the April Fool's post, I had to get a row of Bibles to stand by themselves like so:

It was a lot easier than I would have liked. Fortunately, there were a few stalwarts that refused to comply. They were floppy enough to merit their own YouTube video. Follow the link and check it out: The Virtue of Inflexibility.

If This Is Spring...

2008-03-31T11:32:00.004-05:00

The sky is a white haze this morning. I went to the window and stared down at the snow-gilt trees, baffled by the capricious weather. This is March 31, the cusp of Spring, but outside it might as well be December 24. I'm not complaining -- I can hole up at my computer with a steady supply of coffee and not feel a bit of guilt for not being outdoors.

So how about some photos?

Over the weekend, Laurie and I took a spur-of-the-moment roadtrip to Yankton, SD. How's this for a motive: we'd only gotten halfway through a Laura Lippman audiobook last weekend, and we wanted to finish it. In other words, the drive was its own reward, but it turned out Yankton (which I'd never visited) was full of interesting sights.

The road there was intriguing, too:

Burned out cars are a staple of country driving around here. I don't know why. Maybe the farmers put them out for scarecrow duty, a warning to motorists not to stop and ask for directions. One thing seems certain: this puppy didn't just catch on fire. The hood and engine look pristine, while the rest of the family wagon is torched.

In Yankton, I was fascinated by the marina, which is still very much on ice -- with a nice, cutting wind coming across the frozen water. The sky above was beautiful.

We crossed a rickety one-lane bridge into Nebraska, then crossed right back and went home. The first snow started tapping on the windshield as we arrived.

Relief Journal News

2008-03-19T14:39:00.003-05:00

Coach Culbertson has posted some news about staff comings and goings at Relief Journal, so I figured I should re-cap it here. First, the details:

* Alan Ackmann is moving up to head the Fiction Acquistions.

* J. Mark Bertrand is moving from Fiction Editor to be part of our forming Relief Advisory Board as his book deals start cooking. We're thrilled to keep Mark as an advisor, and his contributions have shaped Relief in a major way.

* Lisa Ohlen Harris is changing titles to represent all her fantastic work. She's been a co-editor of Creative Nonfiction, but she does so much more. Her new title is Assistant Editor, and she'll still be working with the Creative Nonfiction side as well.
Lisa is a major asset to our team, and we felt that her title should represent what she's already accomplishing.

* Jill Noel Kandel, as most of you know, is our Guest Editor for Creative Nonfiction for Issue 2.3. If you missed it, her interview can be found here.

* Karen Miedrich-Luo is moving from Creative Nonfiction Editor to Creative Nonfiction Consultant to focus more on writing.

* We're still trying to come up with a new title for Heather Von Doehren, as she's working on some new partnerships and stuff, so for right now she's going to be Editor-Who's-Working-On-Cool-Stuff in addition to working with Poetry.

So what this means is that, while I was the Fiction Editor during the journal's founding year, other responsibilities have forced me to step back. Fortunately, I leave the job in more capable hands than mine. Alan Ackmann is a superb writer and editor both. My attachment to Relief Journal is such that, in spite of the time crunch, I wanted to find a way to keep my hand in, so Coach decided to launch an Advisory Board and keep me on in that capacity, for which I'm grateful.

By the way, if you don't subscribe to Relief Journal, you should. It's an ambitious magazine that's already managed to publish some amazing work, and it gets better and better. Follow the link and find out for yourself. And if you're planning to attend the Calvin Festival next month, be sure to stop by the Relief booth and say hello!

The Return of the Paranoid Style

2008-03-07T13:50:00.005-06:00

The always-insightful Ross Douthat writing in the April 2008 issue of The Atlantic about the return of the 1970s-style paranoid style in American entertainment:

"But it wasn't just the reassertion of America's usual frivolity that caused the 9/11 moment to be stillborn; it was the swiftness with which the Iraq War replaced the fall of the Twin Towers as this decade's cultural touchstone. It's Halliburton, Abu Ghraib, and the missing WMDs that have summoned up a cultural moment in which bin Laden is a tongue-in-cheek punch line for a zombie movie and the film industry's typical take on geopolitics traces all the world's evils to the machinations of a White Male enemy at home."

I've puzzled before over the way that the Iraq War seems to have trumped September 11 as a galvanizing factor. I think Douthat is right in pointing out that the Iraq War fits better into the overall narrative a lot of people already embrace. He writes "...the '70s revival isn't simply a case of supply responding to demand; it's also a case of Hollywood giving the audience what Hollywood wants to give it." If you don't subscribe to The Atlantic, it's worth hunting down on the newsstand for Douthat's article alone. It's an excellent bit of cultural commentary.

Pilgrim Radio Interview Today

2008-03-06T11:16:00.000-06:00

Last week, I recorded an interview about Rethinking Worldview with Pilgrim Radio's Bill Feltner, and it's running today at 2 AM, 12 PM and 9 PM Pacific Time. You can listen live by following this link and clicking on "Listen Now":

Pilgrim Radio

The program is called His People. Thank you, Bill, for the great conversation!